Ok, so British actor David Jason (most famous for his role as Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses) is in all the papers today about an apparently rascist joke told during a radio interview.
The joke was reported as:
At first, I didn’t get the joke, but then realised it’s a play on the name “Mahatma”, and so he probably said something like “Mahatma coat”. Erm…so not particularly rascist.
Apparently the main complaint about it, seems to be that some think it implies that Pakistanis are more likely to work in cloakrooms:
Unless there’s more to this situation than I realise (e.g. that Pakistanis used to be stereotyped as cloakroom attendants), I think he told a harmless joke. He’s an old man, and times have changed around him, and he just didn’t realise you can’t start a joke with “Have you heard the one about the [nationality or race]…”, no matter what the punchline.
I feel sorry for him being hung out to dry like this.
Bollocks, he’s the same age as my Dad, who would never have dreamt of using such a joke at any time in his life. It’s a “don’t these funny foreigners have funny names” kind of joke which reeks of parochialism and ignorance. It’s also not very funny. He should have known better.
Pfft! There are plenty of jokes about names. Using such names as:
Ivanna Tinkle
Amanda Screw
Dick Burns
etc etc
I’m sure plenty of western people use jokes using names such as these all the time. Just because he happened to use a name from another ethnicity he got bashed. It’s not implying anything bad about another race, just playing on words.
It shows a little ignorance as he said Pakistani instead of Indian. But not racism.
My wife comes from the same state as Gandhi and didn’t find it racist in the slightest.
It’s a pretty stupid joke. Mahatma isn’t a Pakistani name it’s an Indian/Tibetan (Hindu) title meaning someone revered for their wisdom and compassion. There’s no connection between being Pakistani and being a cloakroom attendant either, that’s just there to get the hat and coat business in. It’s a storm in a teacup IMO, more ignorant than racist.
But the play on words only works if you are pretty ignorant of the race in question. The joke is based on underlying racist assumptions and lack of knowledge.
And I come from the same state as Jomo Kenyatta, and I did. How’s this relevant?
My apologies for highjacking the thread, but can you tell me something else? I have recently read a book by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. I know that Rinpoche is an honorific, but if I were writing about his book, how would I address him? Might I say “Mr. Mingyur’s book …”?
I didn’t say it was a funny joke or a sophisticated one.
Ignorance is not the same as racism.
Because she is of the race that is allegedly being discriminated against in the joke and didn’t find a problem with it. If the “target” race don’t see it as harmful or racist then I don’t think it is. Obviously she doesn’t speak for all the Indian people but was just an example…
That everyone is pig ignorant about Pakistan and India and can’t distinguish between them. That Mahatma is actually a first name. That Coat is a reasonable surname.
Are you seriously telling me this is just a “silly name” joke? That we are not being invited to laugh at the funny Pakistani with his funny name?
The most telling aspect of it is that the “joke” would not work as “well” if you replaced Pakistani with Indian. This is because there is a recognised genre of “Paki” jokes in the UK, and not Indian jokes.
What a stupid joke, to start with. Is this what we are reduced to?
And yes, it is a “look at the funny name” joke. And faintly racist.
All that aside, I think it’s stupid to get in a huff about it. I’d rather be a topic of humor than fear, and humor is how people deal with the alien and the different - that is, once they put the pitchforks away.
I admit, I don’t know much about the differences, but I have heard that Pakistanis and Indians can be very touchy about being mistaken for one another or having their countries/cultures confused with each other. Is that what this is all about?
I’m not in a huff at all. I never really liked David Jason, but he is a much beloved, national institution kind of a figure in the UK, and this is a dissapointing and wildly misjudged slip on his part.
For a long time, and still to a certain extent, anyone with somewhat “brown” skin in the UK was dubbed a “paki”, a sign of ignorance and highly offensive. So yes, that is what part of this is about.